A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary, 1939-1940

In some ways, I read Iris Origo's war diaries in the wrong order, as I have recently finished her War in the Val d'Orcia, her account from 1943 -44, whereas this earlier book covers 1939-40. Whereas the later book described the chaos and suffering of Italian civilians caught between the Allies and the Germans in 1943 and 1944, this one covers the Italian version of the Phoney War, when Italian politicians were deciding who to side with, and indeed, whether to join in at all. Mussolini decided to throw in the country's lot with Hitler, and became increasingly hostile towards Britain and America - Origo was Anglo-American. She looks at propaganda, fake news, the thoughts of ordinary Italians, reluctant to have their menfolk called up, and show more their very disparate view of Il Duce. A privileged woman, she has insights into the thoughts of the Great and the Good, and it's these that inform her book, which unlike her later work more or less ignores the couple's day to day life - even to a large extent her pregnancy. So it's just as involving as her later book, and gives an understanding that England was not, as we in the UK might imagine, always seen as the Great White Knight standing powerfully against the might of Hitler and the German army. An excellent introduction by Lucy Hughes-Hallet, and an equally informative afterword by Origo's granddaughter Katia Lypsy booked the diary. show less

This would have been an interesting read at any time but reading it now, in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its recent mobilization, was fascinating. War and rumours of war. Nothing much changes.

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